Maryland CLN Stands with Striking Nurses in Baltimore

In the historic first-ever registered nurse strike at a Baltimore hospital – from 7 a.m. on July 24 to 6:59 a.m. on July 25, 2025 – the Maryland Catholic Labor Network (MdCLN) ensured a continual Catholic presence alongside the striking nurses of Ascension St Agnes, offering solidarity rooted in Catholic Social Teaching. Nurses represented by National Nurses United went on strike over chronic understaffing, unsafe floating assignments, high turnover, and patient safety concerns.

The Nurses voted to join National Nurses United nearly two years ago but have yet to win a first contract. In the United States, employers often drag out bargaining for a first contract in hopes that workers will become frustrated and give up before the union becomes established.

MdCLN organized lay and clergy presences at multiple times onsite with prayer and picket signs. Signs featured excerpts from Laborem Exercens (St. Pope John Paul II) on the right to strike without repercussion, Caritas in Veritate (Pope Benedict XVI) on the need for unions now more than ever, and A Framework for Comprehensive Health Care Reform by the USCCB establishing health care as a human right – not a commodity. Their presence not only visibly affirmed the nurses’ moral claims but held Ascension leadership to its own professed Catholic mission.

Framed through Catholic Social Teaching – human dignity, solidarity, and the preferential option for workers – MdCLN emphasized labor justice in Baltimore’s healthcare landscape, where large medical systems dominate and the conditions of one hospital ripple across the city.

By interweaving prayer, public witness, and doctrinal grounding, MdCLN amplified nurses’ calls for safe staffing, fair bargaining, and respect – connecting local struggle to universal Catholic concern for the worker and the common good. The strike marks a watershed moment for labor justice in Baltimore and a prophetic solidarity from the Church in action.

CLICK HERE to read the Maryland Catholic Labor Network’s message of support to the striking nurses.